Structures

Major structures such as sky-scrapers, bridges, roads, pipelines and aeroplanes are sophisticated systems that rely on the expertise of structural engineers to function. From the most basic level of being able to stand safely and perform their functions, the science of structural engineering is what allows designs to do their job effectively and in a way we can predict.

For as long as humans have built their own structures we have been using materials to their limits, but over the last hundred years we have been able to obtain a much greater understanding of how and why structures function as they do. With the rise of the professional structural engineer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries began an era of scientific rigour and experimentation of materials, forces and of static and dynamic loading that has facilitated the era of glass, steel and concrete that we live in today.